With the increasing number of students seeking media internship, it’s time for media training institutions to come up with new approaches to maximising available opportunities.
Here is a list of what we think they should be considering to ease the search for internship placements for students.
*Get familiar with the present situation in media organisations. There is no point in sending students to media houses when institutions and lecturers are not interacting with the organisations as much as they should be doing. Many media houses can only take a limited number. They don’t have enough workspace and facilities for their staff and can’t afford to crowd their office with interns.
Some media houses are not paying their staff and can’t afford to pay interns any amount to support their transportation however far their houses are from the office. Even when they are sent to assignments, they are not paid any amount.
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*Media training institutions should have regularly updated database for their students to consider. Many students are not aware of some new media organisations, small and big ones. They keep going to old ones that don’t have spaces for them or where they will be idle. They get desperate in their attempts to get a placement and some people take advantage of them, especially ladies.
*Media institutions should be flexible about where their students can acquire relevant experience. Some supposedly smaller and unknown organisations offer more opportunities to learn than top ones.
*Online internship should be possible in the present digital age. Institutions should not insist on the traditional mode of internship considering than there are too many interns chasing few options.
COVID-19 has taught us that many things we thought were not possible can be done remotely. Online learning and teaching are now new normal that should be fully explored in situations where there are too many students chasing a few internship placements.
READ ALSO: Internship Diary: Journalism isn’t easy
We must be open to experimenting with new ideas and not deny students the opportunities to learn by sticking to the no-longer realistic options for getting relevant training.
